Gov. Jerry Brown waits for the start of a news conference to announce plans to build a giant twin tunnel system to move water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to farmland and cities.

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Originally published on July 25, 2012 6:29 pm

Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown and U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a new $23.7 billion proposal that would build a twin tunnel system to carry water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta over to the southern part of the state.

Water in Southern California has become an intractable problem. The frustration was evident at the press conference, when Brown dropped a four-letter expletive.

"'Analysis paralysis is not why I came back 30 years later to handle some of the same issues,' the 74-year-old former governor said. 'At this stage, as I see many of my friends dying — I went to the funeral of my best friend a couple of weeks ago — I want to get s--- done.'

"The Democratic governor has been seeking a way to move water through or around the Delta since he was governor before. He persuaded the Legislature three decades ago to approve a peripheral canal, but the measure was defeated in a referendum in 1982."

Lauren Sommer reports on the history for today's edition of All Things Considered.

She went to the delta with biologist Julio Adib-Samii who says the current pumps have contributed to the ecological damage of the delta.

"Ten years ago, the Delta's fish populations crashed," Sommer reports. "Chinook salmon numbers went so low, the commercial fishery shut down for two years."

Sommer added: "Federal wildlife agencies stepped in and said water pumping had to slow down during certain times of year to protect fish. That didn't go over well in certain parts of the state."

Today's announcement is supposed to fix all of this. But the project is already facing some tough hurdles.

"State officials admit they don't know just how much water would be diverted through the tunnels or how habitat restoration and decreased flows would affect the fish. They say these questions would be answered through scientific studies that accompany construction over the next 10-15 years.

"Opponents argue it would devastate the delta region, including its ecosystem and agriculture-based economy. They say it's unacceptable to proceed with building the tunnels without knowing up front their impact on imperiled fish species such as salmon and smelt. Officials said the amount of water to be pumped would depend on what is good for the fish."

We'll add audio of Sommer's piece to this post a little later on tonight.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Today in California, Governor Jerry Brown and U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a new project. It would deliver water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to 25 million people stretching from Silicon Valley to San Diego. And it would cost $17 billion.

Lauren Sommer, of member station KQED, tells us more about this new plan to manage California's water and how it came about.

LAUREN SOMMER, BYLINE: Almost all of the state's water is found in Northern California, the very top part. The rest of the state is where most of the people live. This problem was painfully obvious to state planners a century ago. They knew, for California to grow, they had to move the water south.

RONALD SILVA: Right now, we're situated on the upstream side of the C.W. Bill Jones Pumping Plant.

SOMMER: Ronald Silva of the Bureau of Reclamation runs this plant about 60 miles east of San Francisco. It pumps millions of gallons every minute. The water goes into canals that stretch all the way to Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and farmland in the Central Valley. Where it comes from?

SILVA: The water is coming out of the delta.

SOMMER: The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, an inland estuary where California's two largest rivers meet before they flow out to San Francisco Bay. To water planners, it was the perfect place to tap into. That is, until the problems started. Ten years ago, the delta's fish populations crashed. Chinook salmon numbers went so low, the commercial fishery shut down for two years. Biologists say this happened for a number of reasons - habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and the water pumps.

BARRY NELSON: The pumps in the south delta are so powerful that they literally reverse the direction of flow.

SOMMER: That's Jason Peltier with Westlands Water District, an agricultural area in the Central Valley that depends on water from the delta.

PELTIER: You can't get a loan to farm unless you can show the banker what water you have.

SOMMER: John Laird is California's Secretary for Natural Resources.

JOHN LAIRD: There was lawsuit after lawsuit and it got to the point that it made much more sense to look at the entire delta as a whole.

SOMMER: The state announced today it hopes to do that with something called the peripheral tunnel. The 35-mile project would take water from farther upstream, bypassing the delta. Supporters say that would make the water supply more reliable. It's not a new idea. Laird points to 1982, when California voters defeated a similar plan.

LAIRD: The real debate is not the tunnel itself. It's how much water and when can it flow through the tunnel.

SOMMER: State and federal wildlife agencies raised a red flag a few months ago, saying a large project could harm the delta's endangered species. Laird says they'll restore thousands of acres of wetlands to compensate. California voters would be on the hook for up to 3 billion to pay for that, while water users would pay the remaining 14 billion for the tunnel. It's a tough sell in today's economy, but state officials say a necessary one if the water deadlock is ever going to be broken.